Partial Rustication and pits

[SchmidtN]

Hi everybody, long time lurker, first time poster.

I've lurked and read and looked at you guys making pipes and decided I'd try to make a few. I'm working on my first pipe and I really don't know how you guys do it. My piece of briar has so many sand pits in it I don't know how any smooth pipes get made! I think I'm going to do a partial rustication sort of like a Wessex Londoner and was wondering a couple things.

1)I know lately people have recommended bowl coatings for pits in the tobacco chamber, but this is my first pipe; it'll stay with me until it's sold at my estate sale after I die. Is it OK to leave it and let it fill with cake? Will that crack my bowl? What if I use sawdust and honey to make a paste and fill the pit?

2) I have a sand pit up on the top of the bowl, if I'm doing a partial rustication will the pit on top give the pipe character, or be a blemish?

3) How smooth do you sand down the inside of the bowl. I've read 120, but looking in the gallery it looks like a lot of people go much smoother than that. If I sand it too smooth will the cake still stick?

example of how I'd like to rusticate


my pipe in progress



It's a pipe for me, but I really want it to look professional. I want people to see me smoking it, ask who made it and not believe me when I tell them I did. Also, the only power tool I have is a dremel so it's kind of hard to make it perfectly round. Do most of you guys have lathes and if you do, how big is it (bench top model?) and what do you guys recommend?

Thanks for the time and help,
Nick

[JHowell]

Yikes! May just be the photo but that one inside looks almost half the wall thickness deep. I wonder if those two flaws link up. Something that big I'd fill with pipe mud -- paste of cigar ash and water. Almost all the pipes of mine that I keep are because of flaws inside the bowl, and it's pretty surprising how big a flaw will just fill up with carbon and never be a problem. That one there might just be over the line for me, though. Briar *does* have a lot of flaws, and with a certain percentage of pipes you just have to chuck it and start over. With any luck you can save the stem.

[SchmidtN]

Yes, the pit is very deep. I'd say 1/3 to 1/2 way through the wall of the bowl. And the entire stummel has 8 pits that I can see right now. How the heck do you guys make smooth pipes with wood this full of holes?

Is carbon the filler of choice? I'm kind of concerned it'll expand because of heat and crack the bowl. In other wood working projects I'd used sawdust and watered down glue and I think I've read here that sawdust and honey works in pipes. I just want to make sure I wont break it so I want to do what you guys do. No need to reinvent the wheel.

I really hope I don't have to throw away my first pipe.

[Sasquatch]

I wouldn't throw it away, but I wouldn't get too worried about the final product, either. Practice your rustication techniques, smoke the pipe. If you have an awful hole like that in the bowl, you could try filling it with cement or grout or something. Long and the short of it, like Mr Howell (how do you like that, Jack, pretty 'speckful, huh??) said, you just dont ever sell a pipe that's like that, and some you keep for yourself.

How do we make smooth pipes? Get better briar. You got a junker there, man, sorry bout that. Some vendors are hit and miss, some are real good. But ordinarily you more or less get what you pay for. If you buy a block for 9 bucks, it's probably not gonna as good as a similarly sized block that you pay 40 for (all things being equal, which in fact they aren't).

Anyway, it happens, happens to us all, and there's bugger all you can do except hope the next one's better. I just lost a really promising freehand to a fissure that relates to curing improperly. I am not a happy boy about this! But it happens.

[andrew]

I would be concerned that a pit of that size would "run" if you use a honey/sawdust mix. Unless it carmelized right away it might run out into the bowl (or at least sag). I would go with Mr Howell's solution (cigar ash/water) to fix the pit as best you can if you are intent on keeping it. Good luck.

[Sasquatch]

PS in terms of sanding the chamber... some guys sand it ultra fine, some guys swear by 220, some by 180, .... I don't do a damn thing to my chambers. I drill the pipes and send em out. If stain is being removed or something like that, or a chamber gets widened by a dremel.... I just leave it. I never think "gosh, cake will build differently on the dremeled part", and no one has ever mentioned anything about it to me. Of all the pipe making tricks and techniques you can focus on, I'd say how smooth the chamber is should be your very absolute last. Research which M+M color melts faster than the brown ones (which btw taste better) before you research how smooth the make the inside of the bowl for best cake.

[SchmidtN]

Thanks for the advice. Pipe mud it is.

And I'll have to find better briar for next time.